After a transplant, a patient may be in the hospital for up to two weeks recovering from the operation itself. This is followed by several months of intensive monitoring, during which the patient returns to the hospital often for tests that look at cardiovascular health and make sure the body is not rejecting the new organ. These tests often include echocardiograms, blood draws, electrocardiograms, and samples of heart tissue taken through a catheter. The patient may also receive lung function testing, will need to take several medications, and continue to get annual tests to monitor their health.

It is often advisable for a person who has had a heart transplant to start a cardiac rehabilitation program and to receive counseling after this life-changing event. Temple’s integrated care team can ensure the patient receives assistance recovering, working through any physical or emotional issues, and improving their heart health.

Why Temple?

The heart transplant team at Temple has a high degree of experience helping patients through the transplant recovery process, and we stay with our patients for the long-term to make sure they get all the support they need. A heart transplant is truly a second chance at life. We work together with our patients to ensure they can take full advantage of that opportunity.

Until she fainted in 2012, Alicia didn’t know she was sick. Feeling tired and out of breath were “normal for me,” says the now 52-year-old single mom. The Glenside resident believed she felt that way because she was overweight and out of shape. She was working 10- to 12-hours daily attending her daughter Shannon’s high school track meets and working part-time on an online MBA degree.

After suffering a seizure in 2000, Brain learned that a virus had destroyed the lower third of his heart. He received a defibrillator and a dual pacemaker. More than a decade later, his heart function began to deteriorate further. So his doctors in the Lehigh Valley recommended that Brian go to the Temple Heart & Vascular Institute—where, at the age of 70, he received a heart transplant in December 2013.

Over the last two decades, MCSDs have been developed to augment or supplant failing myocardial performance. This therapy has been used successfully as a bridge to heart transplantation, a bridge to recovery, and as permanent implantation or "destination therapy" for intractable heart failure. Although heart transplantation offers life-saving therapy for selected patients, its use is limited by a supply of donor organs that currently meets less than one-tenth the need. As a consequence, the number of MCSD implantations has increased in recent years.

The response to therapy with a fixed dose combination of isosorbide dinitrate and hydralazine (FDC I/H) is enhanced in African Americans with heart failure and reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) when...

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Temple Health refers to the health, education and research activities carried out by the affiliates of Temple University Health System (TUHS) and by the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University. TUHS neither provides nor controls the provision of health care. All health care is provided by its member organizations or independent health care providers affiliated with TUHS member organizations. Each TUHS member organization is owned and operated pursuant to its governing documents.